Singulation systems, also known as singulators, are known in the art of product conveying and depalletizing as systems for taking a group of products, such as a pallet layer of boxes, picking up each product, one at a time, and positioning the products one after the other.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,471,044 B1, issued on Oct. 29, 2002 to Isaacs et al. and being titled “Hold and Release Singulator” describes a singulator that includes a hold-and-release singulator module sandwiched between an infeed belt conveyor and an exit belt conveyor. The hold-and-release singulator module includes parallel independently-driven and paced conveyor belts that allows outputting parcels one at a time at the output end of the module. An optional vision system can be provided to take and process an image of the parcels to determine the two-dimensional location of the perimeter of each parcel.
A first drawback of the singulator from Isaacs et al. is that the parcels are fed pre-separated to the system and, as such, the system is not suitable to singulate a pallet layer, wherein products are closely packed.
Another drawback of the singulator from Isaacs is that there is no simple means to orient the outputted parcels.
Singulators are also well-known in the field of mail sorting. An example of a mail singulator is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,634,328, issued to Carrell on Jan. 6, 1987 and titled “Mail Singulation System”. While the singulator proposed by Carrell is configured to receive unsingulated mail in bulk, the tool and vision system used are limited to handling lightweight objects. Also, the robot tool being in the form of a pusher, orienting the mail object is again limited.
The singulator from Carrell allows highlights the fact that any efficient singulator system is configured for receiving specific objects in a predetermined configuration and to output the same objects, singulated and within an orientation determined by the singulator.
A singulator adapted to receive a pallet layer at its input and to provide at the output singulated and oriented objects from the pallet layer is thus desirable.